Why a right to life rules out infanticide: A final reply to Räsänen

Abstract

Joona Räsänen has argued that pro-life arguments against the permissibility of infanticide are not persuasive, and fail to show it to be immoral. We responded to Räsänen's arguments, concluding that his critique of pro-life arguments was misplaced. Räsänen has recently replied in 'Why pro-life arguments still are not convincing: A reply to my critics', providing some additional arguments as to why he does not find pro-life arguments against infanticide convincing. Here, we respond briefly to Räsänen's critique of the substance view, and also to his most important claim: that possession of a right to life by an infant does not rule out the permissibility of infanticide. We demonstrate that this claim is unfounded, and conclude that Räsänen has not refuted pro-life arguments against infanticide.

Keywords: abortion; animalism; infanticide; pro-life; right to life; substance view.